Delhi's All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) is scheduled to begin the clinical trials of the indigenous Bharat Biotech's COVID-19 vaccine "Covaxin" on children aged 6 to 12 years from Tuesday. Until now, AIIMS Patna has started the Paediatric clinical trial of Covaxin. On May 11, the Drug Controller General of India (DCGI) gave nod to Bharat Biotech to conduct clinical trials on children. Earlier, doses of Covaxin administered to children aged 12 to 18 years and the trial of this age group now completed.
Doctor of Community Medicine Department of AIIMS, Prof. Sanjay Rai said that doctors have administered vaccine doses to 10 children till Saturday. These children were between 12 and 18 years old. Now on Tuesday, we will conduct health checkups for children aged 6 to 12 years. After this, children between 2 and 6 years of age will included in the test. Children who have been vaccinated till Saturday are continuously being monitoring by a team of doctors.
Earlier, Member (Health) of Niti Aayog VK Paul had said, "Covaxin approved by the Drugs Controller General of India (DCGI), for Phase II/III clinical trials in the age group of 2 to 18 years." Significantly, experts are constantly predicting that the third wave of coronavirus will have an impact on children.
Recently, Paul also said that Ahmedabad-based Zydus Cadila is also conducting trials of its Covid-19 vaccine on children in the age group of 12-18 years. However, the company is yet to apply for licensure in the next 10-14 days. Meanwhile, the Zydus vaccine, ZyCov-D developed with support from the Centre's National Biopharma Mission. As part of the Biotechnology Industry Research Assistance Council, department of biotechnology.
